PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS
There’s a reason PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds regularly boasts 500,000 concurrent players and has sold in excess of six million copies: it’s the basic battle royale premise done right. With frequent updates and new PUBG maps, the chart-conquering sensation is replete with features and is addictive beyond belief.
PlayerUnknown isn’t just a cool-sounding title either, it’s the pseudonym of Brendan Greene: the creator of PUBG, and the man responsible for the incredibly popular Arma 3 Battle Royale mod. That experience shows in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which forgoes complications like crafting and a complex melee fighting system, and instead focuses on razor-sharp firefights, tactical play, and scavenging.
More so than any other battle royale game on this list, PUBG feels and controls realistically, resulting in reactive gameplay that never grows old. Opening
PUBG crates for new outfits can be worryingly addictive, and technically, the game is a little rough around the edges, but nothing tastes quite as satisfying as bagging that end-game chicken dinner after outlasting 99 other players.

FORTNITE
Want some poppy, comic book visuals with your 100-man massacres? Fortnite Battle Royale takes the perfectly poised match structure of PUBG and ditches all the gritty realism for colours and soft edges. On top of that, Epic Games continue to outdo themselves with each new Fortnite season, changing the map, adding heaps of new Fortnite skins, and overhauling gameplay mechanics. It’s no wonder Fortnite player numbers continue to swell: this is the current king of battle royales.
As its Fortnite, you’ll also be able to harvest resources and build structures like houses to camp in, walls for cover, traps to deal damage, and ramps to help you climb up mountains. This is a battle royale game for those who like to get creative.
That changes the rhythm of the game considerably, increasing the emphasis on resource-gathering throughout the match so that you’ve got plenty of materials to build cover and fortify as the player count dwindles. Being able to build also means a lot of scope for unconventional tactics. Pinned down behind a tree? Pull out your pickaxe, gather a few logs, and build yourself a wall that will give you a bit more protection. Need a sneaky way of getting to an opponent? Try building a series of ramps to flank them from an unexpected angle.
The Fortnite vs. PUBG debate isn’t going to be settled any time soon, so just be grateful we have two spectacular survival shooters to revel in.

APEX LEGENDS
With the dystopian charm of Titanfall’s mech-ravaged world and the intense gunfights that make PUBG so gripping, it’s no wonder that Apex Legends’ player count reached over 25 million players in its first week. Respawn’s battle royale game came out of nowhere and surpassed genre stalwart Fortnite on Twitch in viewership figures in its first seven days.
Apex Legends zips along at an astonishing pace. Sure, it may not be the parkour and wall-running we’ve come to expect from Respawn’s famous robot game, but this battle royale moves in its own way. Sprinting is swifter than you’d expect and sliding takes you a greater distance – especially with the mountainous terrain considered. Movement sets the tone of the gunplay, too: if your team successfully flanks another in a well-timed push, you earn their bounty.
Apex Legends weapons themselves are finely-tuned, showing Respawn’s confidence in launching Apex Legends as a full game rather than in early access. Shotguns fire off with a fearsome crunch that can punish a poorly-timed push as much as a well-placed headshot will aid anyone who is a dab hand with a sniper rifle.
Better still, there’s lots here for casual players. Apex Legends uses a ping system to ease the burden of mic-free communication. Clicking the scroll wheel highlights places of interest, valuable loot, and charging hostiles. What’s more, from a time-hopping assassin to a zip line quip-happy robot, the cast of
Apex Legends characters are wonderfully diverse, quirky, and cool to inhabit.
BLACKOUT
Since PUBG and Fortnite exploded in popularity many

BLACKOUT
Since PUBG and Fortnite exploded in popularity many wondered how long it would be until an established, triple-A IP took on the battle royale games genre. Treyarch were first past the post with Blackout, a battle royale mode to supplement Black Ops 4’s lack of campaign. With a map 1,500 times larger than the iconic Nuketown map, new mechanics like bullet ballistics and vehicles, and even zombies, Blackout is a far cry from the narrow passageways of Call of Duty’s Multiplayer, but it absolutely works.
Despite all of those changes, however, Blackout still feels like a Call of Duty game: fast, slick, and polished. The rapid movement speed and ability to knee-slide give you means to quickly push enemies and secure a kill, while the bullet ballistics and wide range of gear options ensure you always have something to mull over, whether you’re looting a building or about to take a shot. You can always look at our Blackout weapons guide to help ease some of that anxiety.
But Blackout’s coup de grâce is its pace. All of the gameplay mechanics that typically slow down a battle royale game have been stripped out or redesigned to ensure the game is as action-packed as possible. You can heal while sprinting, activate perks while sprinting, heal while swimming, shoot while swimming, and even wingsuit off a cliff and land without having to open a parachute. This is the fastest battle royale game around, and better still you don’t need to learn complex building structures to stand a chance of winning your fights.

Fire storm?